SPORTS TALK.

For One Autumn, Soccer Ruled Chicago

October 04, 1998|By Mike Conklin. INC Columnist Mike Conklin covered the Sting for the Tribune when it was Chicago's pro soccer franchise.

If the tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it make noise? If 39,600 fans attended a soccer game in Chicago on a cold, rainy Monday night in September nearly 17 years ago, did the event really take place if the teams--and stadium--no longer exist?

Almost every time I drive past the parking lot that was once the site of old Comiskey Park, that thought crosses my mind. On Sept. 21, 1981, the now-defunct Chicago Sting did play the now-defunct San Diego Sockers in front of a packed house. There are newspaper clippings to prove it.

Some of Chicago's longtime professional soccer followers also remember that game. Undoubtedly, they've now joined thousands of younger fans in becoming supporters of the Chicago Fire.

This has been an exhilarating year for the Fire. In its first season in Soldier Field, the franchise has been successful in all phases of the game--on the field with an early 11-game winning streak and with attendance figures that broke league records.

More power to them.

What may have been forgotten, or never known, is how bright and hot the Sting soccer comet burned in this city before crashing and disintegrating. And it was a lot of fun getting to that memorable game at Comiskey Park in 1981.

But the Sting's first season in 1975?

Owner Lee Stern may have been king of the Chicago Board of Trade's soybean pits when he formed the club in '75, but his early teams came up short.

The franchise gagged, coughed and wheezed before gaining a toehold on Chicago's attention. The Fire drew more spectators to its opening two home games this spring than the Sting did its entire first year.

The first coach, Bill Foulkes, had been a star for Manchester United in England. He was famous for surviving an airplane crash in Munich, which proved to be the perfect background for coaching pro soccer in Chicago.

The Sting missed the playoffs in the first season by losing the last regular-season game on penalty kicks. In the first three years, it failed to score in a fourth of the games played and qualified for the playoffs only once. Foulkes was gone midway into the '77 campaign.

The crowds were as scarce as goals, so small in Soldier Field that almost everyone could have a seat on the 50-yard line.

When 16,300 spectators--largest crowd of the first season--turned out to see the Sting play the Polish national team, they came to cheer the visitors. When 28,000 showed for the New York Cosmos and legendary Pele in 1976, Chicago Park District employees handling parking were so overwhelmed the game had to be delayed nearly a half-hour.

Ed McCaskey, a professional singer before marrying into the Bears, sang the national anthem at an early match. George Halas kicked out the ball for the home debut; he was both the first and last recognizable name on the field in 1975, although the team did draft a goalie named Mickey Rooney from Keene State.

Whereas President Peter Wilt has quickly built the Fire into an organization that is the envy of Major League Soccer, the first Sting season ended with owner Stern firing General Manager--and ex-Chicago Bear--Mike Pyle. Then they got into--and I am not making this up--an acrimonious tug-of-war over ownership of the office adding machine.

This was almost as good as the night several seasons later when Stern, who on his best days made George Steinbrenner look like a wallflower, went to the field during a game in Memphis to harass a player he had traded, Jado Hasanbegovic, who still owed him money.

Then as now there never was a shortage of people wanting to get into a sports franchise's front office. Stern hired many execs-in-the-making, including John McDonough and Arlene Gill of the Cubs and Jim DeMaria of the Blackhawks. One-time GM Charlie Evranian left to run several state fairs, and PR man Jerry Epstein is a vice president with Fleischman-Hillard.

Bill Smith, one of the country's top sports photographers, got his start in the business shooting Sting matches.

Televised games were scarce in the early seasons. The franchise was 4 years old before it finally had a regular TV package on WGN-Ch. 9, which aired a half-dozen games in '78. WGN's Roy Leonard, one of the team's best (and only) supporters in the media, used to fly to West Coast games on the day of the match to handle commentary and return via a red-eye flight for his morning radio show.

Brad Sham, another early PR man, went on to become play-by-play man for the Dallas Cowboys and currently does the Monday night NFL games on radio. Another early PR man, Steve Weaver, is host of a popular radio talk show in Portland, Ore.

The first Sting roster was an Ellis Island roll call--at least a dozen nationalities and five continents were represented, but until you asked, you could never be sure of anyone's roots.

Boris Shlapak? He was an American from Maine South High School before changing his name to Ian Stone. Eddie May? He was a starting defender whose real trade was cutting meat as a butcher in his native England.